[Techtalk] filesystem heirachy (was Why is life without X important?)

[Sophie]

On Sun, Sep/ 8/02 11:59:02AM -0700, Dave North wrote:
> Malcolm:
> > Not everything under /usr can be shared between machines. The stuff in
> > /usr/share/ can be (hence the "share").
> 
> Looking at it logically, it sounds like you're saying it's a permissions
> issue. I doubt (for example) it's _impossible_ to make /usr/doc
> "sharable" between machines (hold on ... lemme try -- oops! I just did it).

Looking at various machines' /usr/share, I see manpages, source code, release info :) and default configurations which things fall back to when a user hasnt specified her own configuration.

The key here is that it is architecture independant. (I realise that some systems have libraries in here too) Hence, sharing things between similar OSs on different architectures requires a place to live. Speaking of which, I should set this up for myself, as I am low on diskspace on a few machines :)

The FHS does indeed suggest that /usr/share/doc may exist:
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2/fhs-4.11.html


> 	Is it your understanding that this is a convenience for network
> administrators?

And also to save repeated code.


> > I know you didn't want to know that, but tough luck. :)

I did :) Something I hadnt bothered reading about before, thanks for the prompting.

- sophie